Definition
A label is a slip of paper, parchment, ribbon, or similar material appended to a document or physical object to convey identifying, descriptive, or qualifying information. The term carries three distinct legal applications:
1. Documentary attachment (historical). A narrow strip of paper or parchment physically affixed to a deed, writ, or other legal instrument to bear an appended seal. The label itself was not the seal but the medium through which the seal hung from the document.
2. Codicil or annex. Any writing appended to a larger instrument — most commonly, a codicil added to a will. Used in this sense, "label" describes the addendum's physical and functional relationship to the primary document.
3. Product and trade label (commercial law). A printed or written slip affixed to manufactured goods or packages giving information about the product's nature, quality, contents, or maker. In this sense, label carries significant regulatory weight under consumer protection, food and drug, and intellectual property law. Product labels are subject to mandatory disclosure requirements, and their content — including omissions — can give rise to liability for fraud, misrepresentation, or statutory violations.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To affix a ticket or sign to something; to categorize a person or thing by assigning a descriptive term; in scientific contexts, to mark a biological or chemical substance with a tracer.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A slip of silk, paper, or parchment affixed to an object and bearing an inscription identifying its contents, ownership, or destination; also a slip attached to a document to hold a seal; also a writing annexed by addition, as a codicil.
The ordinary meaning of "label" is close to the commercial law usage, but the gap opens at the margins. Common usage treats a label as purely descriptive and informal. Legal usage imposes affirmative duties: what a label must say, what it may not say, and what liability follows from a label's content or absence. The historical legal sense — a parchment strip bearing a seal — has no counterpart in modern everyday English at all.
Common Confusion
The distinction between a label and a trademark should not be collapsed. Bouvier's expressly flags this: a label identifies and describes goods, while a trademark proper functions as a source identifier entitled to registration and the full apparatus of trademark protection. A label may incorporate a trademark, but the two are not synonymous. Researchers encountering label in trade-marks treatises (including Browne's Trade-Marks) should read carefully to determine which concept controls in context.
Similarly, in the documentary sense, label and codicil overlap but are not identical. A codicil is a substantive legal instrument amending a will; "label" in that older usage emphasizes the physical appendage rather than the legal effect.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Product label. The dominant modern form in regulatory and commercial law. Encompasses ingredient lists, nutrition facts panels, warning statements, directions for use, and manufacturer identification. Federal statutes governing food, drugs, cosmetics, pesticides, and consumer products each define "labeling" with varying scope — often more broadly than the physical label affixed to a container.
Off-label. A specialized regulatory term denoting use of an approved drug or device for a purpose, population, or dosage not included in the FDA-approved label. The term derives directly from the product label as the boundary marker of approved use. See the Encyclopedia cross-reference above.
Seal-bearing label (historical). The parchment or ribbon strip used in older conveyancing and court practice to attach a wax or paper seal to a deed or writ. Defunct in modern practice but encountered throughout historical legal instruments.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter "label" in at least three distinct corpuses, and context determines meaning almost entirely.
In pre-twentieth-century deed and conveyancing records, label means the physical strip bearing the seal — not a description of the document's contents. Mistaking this usage for the commercial meaning will misdirect research.
In trade-marks and unfair competition materials from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, label sits in tension with trademark. Browne's Trade-Marks and contemporary cases drew a line between label protection (often grounded in common law unfair competition) and trademark registration. That line has shifted considerably under modern federal trademark law, and importing historical label/trademark distinctions into modern analysis without adjustment risks anachronism.
In regulatory law, the word "labeling" is a statutory term of art that typically exceeds the physical label. Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, for example, "labeling" encompasses all written, printed, or graphic matter accompanying a product — including promotional materials distributed separately from the package. Researchers conflating "label" (the physical slip) with "labeling" (the statutory category) will misread regulatory compliance questions and off-label promotion disputes.
The off-label use context is particularly active in health law and bioethics research. The approved label is the legal boundary of indicated use; marketing or promoting outside that boundary triggers First Amendment, fraud, and regulatory enforcement questions that are among the most litigated in FDA law.
Anderson's dictionary entry is minimal — redirecting only to BOOK and COPYRIGHT — suggesting that label's significance in his era lay primarily in the intellectual property context of labeled copies and published works rather than in product regulation, which had not yet developed its modern statutory framework.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries agree on the documentary-attachment sense: Black's (both editions), Bouvier's, and Burrill's all describe the seal-bearing parchment strip. Burrill grounds this in English practice with a reference to Tidd's Practice. Black's (1st and 2nd editions) and Bouvier's each add the commercial product sense as a secondary, "vernacular" meaning — signaling that by the time these editions were compiled, courts were already encountering label in both registers.
Bouvier's is the most analytically useful of the historical sources on the commercial side, because it flags the label/trademark distinction and cites Browne's Trade-Marks — giving researchers a pathway into the early unfair competition literature.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss is the regulatory dimension that would come to dominate the term's legal significance in the twentieth century. None of them anticipates the statutory labeling requirements that would emerge under the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, or the elaborate off-label framework that developed thereafter. Researchers using historical dictionaries to interpret modern label law will find the sources incomplete on the most contested questions.
Jurisdictional Note
Federal law dominates product labeling for drugs, food, cosmetics, and most consumer products, often preempting inconsistent state requirements. State law retains significant force for common law fraud, misrepresentation, and certain consumer protection claims arising from label content. The preemption boundary is heavily litigated and varies by product category.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
FDA Drug Approval — The New Drug Application Process, Clinical Trials, and Off-Label Use (Law Mind Health Law & Bioethics Encyclopedia) [health_34]